Marsaxlokk is the Malta that still smells of the sea and fresh fish: the island's most famous and authentic fishing village, in the south-east, on a wide, sheltered bay where dozens of luzzu float, the traditional boats painted blue, yellow and red, with a pair of eyes drawn on the bow which, according to an ancient custom inherited from the Phoenicians, protect fishermen at sea. It's one of the country's most beloved and photographed scenes.
Every Sunday morning, the village wakes up to a riot of colour: the big Marsaxlokk market takes over the whole harbour promenade, with stalls of just-caught fish, fruit, vegetables, cheese, honey, souvenirs and the usual market clothing. It's the largest and best-known market in Malta and, despite the tourism, it keeps its working soul: local fishermen still sell the week's catch here. On other days, Marsaxlokk slows right down and becomes an ideal haven for a fish lunch by the water.
This guide takes you to Marsaxlokk without fuss: when to go to see the market in full swing, what the luzzu are and where their tradition comes from, where to eat the best fish, how to slip away for a swim in the turquoise St Peter's Pool and how to get there from the rest of the island in a Malta with no trains where you drive on the left. A perfect half-day plan to experience the most genuine side of Malta.
Marsaxlokk has been used as a harbour since Antiquity: Phoenicians and Carthaginians anchored in its bay, and there are remains of a Roman port and of the important sanctuary of Tas-Silġ, dedicated over the centuries to Punic, Greek and Roman deities. The bay was the scene of two decisive invasions: in 1565 the huge Ottoman fleet anchored here before the Great Siege of Malta, and in 1798 Napoleon's army landed. That's why the Knights of St John dotted the bay with towers, batteries and forts (San Lucian, Delimara, Tas-Silġ). Originally part of Żejtun, Marsaxlokk became a parish in its own right in the late 19th century and grew as a fishing village, a trade that is still its identity. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Malta's urban and fishing coastline: from modern Sliema and the nightlife of St Julian's to the colourful boats of the village of Marsaxlokk.
Read the history of The coast (Sliema, Marsaxlokk) →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have 10 activities in La Valeta. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Have a look below: tap any of them to see them all.
They depart from La Valeta, 7 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The name Marsaxlokk tells you almost everything. It comes from the Arabic marsa, meaning 'harbour' or 'anchorage', and xlokk, the Maltese word for the sirocco, the warm, humid wind that blows from the south-east, from Africa. Marsaxlokk is literally 'the south-east harbour': a wide, naturally sheltered bay in the south-eastern corner of Malta that has given shelter to Mediterranean sailors since time immemorial.
Being a safe, well-placed harbour made the bay a coveted spot from the earliest days of Antiquity. The Phoenicians, great seafarers who colonised Malta around the 8th century BC, anchored their ships here. After them came the Carthaginians, heirs to their trading power in the western Mediterranean. Remains of an ancient Roman-era harbour can still be seen in the area, proof that the bay never stopped being used.
Marsaxlokk has also kept its best-loved symbol from that Phoenician past: the eyes painted on the bows of the luzzu, the fishing boats. These 'eyes of Osiris', or of Horus, which we now see as a picturesque detail, are a survival of an ancient custom among the peoples of the old Mediterranean, who painted eyes on their boats so they could 'see' the way and protect fishermen from the dangers of the sea. In Marsaxlokk, that three-thousand-year-old tradition is still alive.
On a hill above Marsaxlokk Bay lies one of Malta's most extraordinary archaeological sites: Tas-Silġ, a sacred place used continuously for almost five thousand years, which sums up the island's long religious history in a single spot. Excavations have revealed overlapping layers of worship running from the Neolithic to the Byzantine period.
The origins of Tas-Silġ go back to the megalithic period, around the third millennium BC, when the mysterious temple-building civilisation flourished in Malta. On top of that prehistoric sanctuary, the Phoenicians and Carthaginians built a great temple dedicated to Astarte, goddess of fertility and love, which became one of the most important religious centres in the central Mediterranean. The Greeks identified this deity with Hera, and the Romans equated her with Juno: under Roman rule the temple remained a wealthy and famous sanctuary, mentioned by ancient writers. It is even believed that the Roman governor Verres, notorious for his plundering, looted its treasures in the 1st century BC.
Finally, with the arrival of Christianity, an early Christian and later Byzantine church and monastery were built over the ruins of the pagan temple. Few places in the world show such a long continuity of worship: Neolithic people, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans and Christians prayed, one after another, on the same hill above Marsaxlokk Bay. The site, still being studied, is a unique testament to how Malta was, for millennia, a crossroads of every civilisation in the Mediterranean.
Marsaxlokk Bay was the setting for one of the most dramatic moments in Malta's history: the Ottoman landing that began the Great Siege of 1565. In May of that year, the huge armada sent by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to seize the island from the Knights of St John chose this wide, sheltered south-eastern bay to anchor. According to the chronicles, some 180 ships and more than 30,000 soldiers entered Marsaxlokk Bay, one of the largest military concentrations the Mediterranean had ever seen.
From there, the Ottoman army spread across the island to attack the Knights' fortresses. The Great Siege that followed was one of the bloodiest and most bitterly fought sieges in history: for almost four months, a few thousand defenders (knights, Spanish and Italian soldiers, and Maltese) held out against a far larger force, in brutal fighting around Fort St Elmo, Birgu and Senglea. The arrival of reinforcements from Sicily in September tipped the balance, and the decimated Ottomans lifted the siege and withdrew. The Christian victory, celebrated throughout Europe, established Malta as an impregnable stronghold.
It was no coincidence that the invasion began in Marsaxlokk: the bay was the best landing point on the island, and that same quality made it its Achilles' heel. The Knights learned the lesson and, in the decades that followed, lined the whole shore of the bay with fortifications so that no enemy could ever again anchor there so easily.
Having learned from 1565, the Knights of St John made Marsaxlokk Bay one of the most heavily fortified in Malta. Through the 17th and 18th centuries they built a real defensive belt: watch and signal towers such as Delimara Tower, Vendôme Tower and Ta' Bettina Tower; coastal batteries such as Pinto and Ferretti; and larger forts such as Fort St Lucian (with its 17th-century tower on the middle point of the bay) and, in the British period, Fort Delimara and Fort Tas-Silġ. The whole bay bristled with cannons aimed at the sea.
Yet those defences did not prevent the next great landing. In June 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte's fleet, on its way to Egypt, appeared off Malta and landed troops at several points on the island, including Marsaxlokk Bay. The Knights, in decline and with no will to resist, surrendered almost without a fight, and the Order of St John was expelled from Malta after 268 years of rule. French rule, however, lasted barely two years: fed up with Napoleonic abuses and looting, the Maltese rose up and, with help from the British fleet, drove out the French in 1800. Malta then passed into the orbit of the British Empire.
So the same bay that saw the Ottomans arrive in 1565 saw the French land in 1798: twice, Marsaxlokk was the gateway for the armies that changed Malta's destiny. Its forts and towers, many still standing, are the silent witnesses of that warlike past, now viewed from the calm of a fishing harbour.
For almost all of its history, Marsaxlokk was not a village in its own right but an anchorage and a stretch of coast belonging to the neighbouring inland town of Żejtun. The people of Żejtun came down to the bay to fish and farm, but a permanent settlement by the harbour grew slowly around fishing, which found a reliable living in the sheltered bay and the rich waters of the south-east.
Only at the end of the 19th century, once the fishing community had grown large enough, did Marsaxlokk become a parish of its own, with its church dedicated to Our Lady of Pompeii overlooking the harbour, and shortly afterwards a village independent of Żejtun. Fishing was, and still is, its reason for being: the village gathered the largest fishing fleet in Malta, and its colourful luzzu set out every dawn for swordfish, tuna and, in autumn, the prized lampuki (dorado), the emblematic seasonal dish of Maltese cooking.
The market tradition also grew out of that seafaring life. Fishermen sold their catch directly at the harbour, and over time that fish market grew into today's great Sunday market, the Suq il-Ħadd, the biggest and most famous in Malta. Every Sunday, the sale of fresh fish drew buyers from all over the island, and stalls of fruit, vegetables and all kinds of goods gradually joined in around it. So the identity of Marsaxlokk (fishing, luzzu, market and seafaring devotion) was forged in barely a century and a half of life as a village.
In a country transformed by tourism, concrete and modernity, Marsaxlokk keeps something many other places in Malta have lost: its soul. It is still a real fishing harbour, with the largest fleet in the country, where the fish that supplies the island is landed every day and where fishermen still mend nets beside their colourful luzzu. That authenticity, more than any monument, is its main attraction.
The big Sunday market is still the unmissable event: every Sunday, the harbour promenade fills with stalls of fresh fish, local produce, souvenirs and bric-a-brac, in a colourful bustle that draws Maltese and tourists alike. Although tourism has added a layer of souvenir shops, the heart of the market is still a working one, and the luzzu bobbing in the bay remain Malta's best-loved postcard. All around, seafood restaurants on the waterfront round off the perfect Maltese Sunday.
Beyond the village, the Delimara peninsula holds coves, lighthouses, forts and the turquoise St Peter's Pool, and up on the hill stand the ancient ruins of Tas-Silġ. In its own humble way, Marsaxlokk sums up the whole history of Malta: the Phoenicians who gave it its painted eyes, the civilisations that prayed at Tas-Silġ, the armies that landed in its bay, the Knights' forts and, above all, the steadfastness of a fishing village that, three thousand years later, still heads out into the south-eastern sea. This is Malta at its most genuine, the Malta that still smells of salt and fresh fish.
